


Arlo, Short For Arlington

by explodingsnapple



Series: Cheers to the 99th Precinct! [12]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: B99 2020 Vision Challenge, Canon Compliant, Dogs, Emotions, Episode: s03e12 9 Days, Fluff, Missing Scene, Personal Growth, Tumblr Prompt, b99fandomevents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:35:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22581856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/explodingsnapple/pseuds/explodingsnapple
Summary: Rosa tried to do something nice. Now she has a new puppy.Missing scene from 3x12.
Relationships: Arlo & Rosa Diaz (Brooklyn Nine-Nine)
Series: Cheers to the 99th Precinct! [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1331927
Comments: 8
Kudos: 68





	Arlo, Short For Arlington

**Author's Note:**

> This is my (very last-minute) entry for the @b99fandomevents 2020 Vision Challenge, which was to create something with the theme "new.” Let's hope we see more of Arlo in season 7!

When Rosa was seven years old, her cat ran away. Her parents broke the news to her and then promptly presented her with a new kitten. “Don’t cry over losing Mittens,” her mom told her. “See? Princess is here, now.” Rosa did two very important things that day: rechristened Princess as Shadow and learned that there’s no use grieving over something you lost. The way she saw it, everything—inanimate or not—comes into your life for a purpose, and once that purpose has been fulfilled, the best thing to do is move on.

Which is why it is absolutely ridiculous that Boyle has spent the better part of a week mourning the loss of his dog. Rosa can make allowances for a few hours, _maybe_ even a day, but more than that is pushing it too far. Rosa doesn’t know why he hasn’t done so already, but it is definitely time for him to get a new pet to fill the “void” or whatever that Jason left behind.

So, after the fifth day in a row where they’ve spent too much time looking at pictures and not enough actually solving their case, Rosa walks to the nearest animal shelter and asks to see their dogs. As Rosa makes her way straight to the back, where the cheapest options should be, a yellow labrador puppy sticks his paw through his bars and whimpers at her as she passes by.

The worker escorting her around nods in the direction of the puppy. “His previous owners dropped him off ’cause he was too difficult to manage—after training him and everything too—and he’s probably going to be here for a while, now, poor baby,” she says, shaking her head and sighing dramatically in an obvious attempt to get Rosa to empathize with the dog’s plight.

Rosa checks her watch, and to her horror, realizes that she only has a few minutes before she has to leave for her oil-painting class. She needs to pick a puppy _now_. “You know what? I’ll take him,” she says, and the woman’s face lights up.

“Really? That’s amazing! Oh, thank you so much, you probably made his day! I just felt _so_ bad for the little guy—he didn’t deserve any of it; people just don’t antici—”

“Mhmm, yeah, he’s potty-trained, right? There shouldn’t be a problem,” Rosa cuts in. “Where do I sign the paperwork?”

* * *

Rosa’s informed that the puppy’s previous owners called him Arlo, which she thinks is the _stupidest_ name she has ever heard of. She refuses the complimentary collar offered by the shelter and decides to just let Charles choose what to call him.

That is, until Charles calls her insensitive and tells her to take the dog away, leaving Rosa suddenly responsible for a wriggling, nameless animal she never intended to have.

After a few hours of trying and failing to get any work done with the dog periodically whining or grunting or nipping at her ankles, Rosa decides to call it a day and figure out what to do next. Once she’s outside, she picks the dog up and raises him to eye-level, giving him her most threatening glare. “Listen up, pup. I don’t have time to go back to the shelter today, so you’re coming with me tonight. No making noise, no peeing indoors, and no doing dumb things. Got it?”

He leans forward, touches his nose to hers, and barks in her face. “No doing that, either,” Rosa adds. The dog grins back at her.

Rosa sighs. “Okay, let’s walk to my car,” she tells the dog, putting him down so he can follow beside her just like she’s seen Cheddar do with Holt. The dog, on the other hand, spots a squirrel and runs straight in the opposite direction. Rosa wonders if Holt would be willing to trade.

* * *

“Good afternoon, Em! And who is this little fellow?” Will, the superintendent of Rosa’s apartment building, leans down slightly to scratch the dog behind the ears.

The dog, apparently liking the sensation, turns in Rosa’s arms, and she involuntarily takes a step back to keep her balance. “Oops! I’m still getting used to carrying him around with me. He doesn’t have a leash yet,” she giggles, immediately assuming the chatty-sorority-girl persona of Emily Goldfinch that she maintains around her neighbors. “A friend of mine couldn’t take care of him, but he was _such_ a good boy that I just _had_ to take him in!”

“He does appear to be a very good boy,” Will says seriously. “What’s his name?”

Rosa freezes. She looks around, desperately trying to come up with something appropriate that the dog actually had a chance of answering to, when she spots a pamphlet to Vassar College in Will’s hand. _Perfect_.

“My friend called him Arlington,” she smiles. “After the place in Poughkeepsie, you know, where we both went to college. Isn’t that, like, the _cutest_ name ever?”

“Oh, Arlo for short! That’s adorable,” Will agrees. Rosa nods, wincing internally. She should have seen that one coming.

“Actually, my daughter is considering attending Vassar herself. Do you have any information about it?”

Two hours later, Rosa finally manages to excuse herself from the conversation and carries a now-sleeping Arlo up to her apartment, having never been more thankful for the year she spent working with a college counseling firm.

* * *

Rosa wakes up the next morning, not to her alarm, but to the sound of extremely agitated whining filling up her apartment. “Arlo?” she calls, sitting up and turning her lamp on. As light floods the room, she realizes that the dog bed in the corner where Arlo was supposed to sleep is empty. _Where could he be?_

She gets up and follows the sound out of her room and into the kitchen, where she nearly trips over something small and furry by the stove that turns out to be Arlo glowering angrily at the oven. Rosa squats down next to him and awkwardly reaches out to pat his back, and to her surprise, Arlo immediately relaxes at her touch.

After a few more seconds, Rosa crosses her legs fully and Arlo climbs onto her lap, his eyes still trained intently on the oven. Rosa reaches out and opens the door, just to check if she left any food inside that may have piqued his senses, but it’s completely empty. “See, there’s nothing here,” she tells Arlo, who sneezes and steps off of her, apparently satisfied with her demonstration.

Rosa shuts the door and stands up, but as soon as she does, Arlo starts growling and pawing at the oven, clearly agitated once again. Rosa steps to the side to survey the scene before her, and as she does so, her reflection in the glass disappears. Instantly, Arlo stops everything and cocks his head quizzically. An idea starts to form in Rosa’s mind.

“Arlo,” she says slowly, bending down to pick up the squirming dog up and place him on the counter, “Are you scared of your own reflection?”

Arlo whimpers and presses his snout into her hand, which Rosa takes as a _yes_. “You really are a dumb dog,” she says, rolling her eyes.

Rosa sighs and picks him up, careful to face away from the oven this time. “It’s okay. There aren’t any mirrors in my room,” Rosa tells him, surprisingly softly. Arlo’s asleep before she even steps out of the kitchen.

* * *

Rosa’s about to leave for her 5 AM run the next morning when Arlo comes bounding up to her just as she opens the door, his tongue out and tail wagging.

“You can’t come with me,” she tells him sternly. “I’m training for the marathon and you won’t be able to keep up.” Arlo simply yips excitedly and jumps up and tries to grab the doorknob with his paws. “I’m serious, it’s too dark to go outside with you right now,” she repeats, trying to shoo him back indoors, but he refuses.

Rosa groans and picks up a stray sandal from the shoe stand. She throws it straight across the room, and while Arlo chases after it, she slips out the door. _Finally_.

Less than half a second later, she hears the unmistakable sound of someone scraping their nails against the wall. She pauses, praying the noise would stop, but it’s only followed by a bark, and then another. Rosa gives up and goes back inside the apartment.

“Okay, here’s what’s going to happen,” she tells Arlo. “You and I are going to wait until sunrise, and then we’re going for a walk. We’ll stop by that coffee shop by the precinct, and then we’ll go back to the shelter and drop you off so you can get adopted by a nice family. Okay?”

But Arlo is too preoccupied with chasing his own tail in circles to pay attention to what she’s saying. Rosa shakes her head and bites back a smile. _Dumb dog._ Whoever ends up adopting him would be lucky to have him.

Two hours later, Rosa’s eating a blueberry scone and sipping on some hot chocolate while Arlo plays with her shoelaces under the table at what is the only dog-friendly coffee shop in Brooklyn. (Technically, that’s not entirely true. This place _also_ has a no-pets rule, but Rosa _may_ have terrified them into letting Arlo come in.)

Rosa’s halfway through her second cup when her phone screen lights up with a picture of her and her sisters and a message reading, “ _Join Group FaceTime?”_ Rosa looks around. She doesn’t have headphones on her, but the shop is empty, so she hits _Accept_.

One of her sisters just got a promotion at work and the other has enough enthusiasm about it for all three of them combined, so Rosa is content with half-listening to their chatter while intermittently feeding Arlo pieces of her scone. Suddenly, Arlo dives across her feet to reach some stray crumbs, and she yelps, startled.

“Rosa, are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure?”

Rosa sighs. “So, I’ve been looking after this dog,” she informs them offhandedly, and her sisters immediately start squealing (well, _shrieking_ ) with excitement. Soon, Rosa finds herself telling them about the events of the past two days.

“The little rugrat was scared of the goddamn oven, can you imagine?” Rosa laughs, holding her cellphone in one hand as she takes a sip of hot chocolate. “I don’t know how mom and dad did it when we got Mittens. One crazy night with Arlo and I’m already going nuts.”

Arlo barks at the mention of his name and Rosa feeds him her last bit of scone. She gets up to go order another one and continues, “Anyway, I’m going back to the shelter before work to drop him off. I can’t believe Charles refused to take him. I mean, when Mittens ran away, Shadow made everything better, instantly.”

There’s a pause as her sisters exchange a look. “What?” Rosa demands.

“Mittens didn’t run away—” “He was really old—” they say at the same time.

The barista hands Rosa a scone and she promptly drops it. “ _What_? Why didn’t anyone tell me he died?”

“He never went outside. How would he run away?”

Rosa’s heart drops. “But he was—he seemed so—was he sick? Is that why?” She asks despite herself, then quickly shakes her head. “It’s fine. It was a long time ago. And Shadow made me forget about it anyway. Listen, I have to go, I’m going to be late,” she says quickly and hangs up.

She walks back to her table and grabs her jacket. “Come on, Arlo,” she calls, walking toward the door. After a few steps, though, she realizes that she isn’t being followed. “Arlo?”

Rosa looks around the small shop, but there’s no one else around. She tries to go behind the counter and check if Arlo is hiding back there, but the barista shoos her out. “I’m looking for my dog,” she tries to explain, but the barista shrugs.

“No dog back here. But there’s a _reason_ we don’t allow pets—”

Rosa clenches her jaw and considers the repercussions of flipping him off, but then another customer walks in and it occurs to her that Arlo may have, somehow, run out and into the street behind her back. Panic rises in her chest and she starts sprinting to the door. _If something happened to him—_

“Ma’am, is this your dog?” Rosa turns on her heel to find a man in a chef’s hat holding Arlo.

Rosa breathes a sigh of relief. _He’s safe._ “Yep,” she grunts, taking him back and holding him close.

“I work at the Italian place next door. I guess he smelled the meat and ran through the connecting door in the back. You should really put him on a leash,” the man says sternly.

“Yeah, I know,” Rosa snaps, running her hand through Arlo’s fur to calm herself. Her heartbeat slowly returns to normal and she looks back up. “Thank you.”

The chef starts to leave, but turns back and calls over his shoulder, “He’s a smart one, that one. And he obviously trusts you. Puppies at his age would normally be wiggling everywhere if you hold them like that.”

Rosa looks down and realizes that the chef is right. While Arlo’s tail is wagging almost violently, he appears to be perfectly content resting her arms.

And, she realizes, she’s perfectly content having him there.

“Hey, bud, what do you say we skip the shelter altogether and you come home with me?” she asks. Arlo blinks up at her, and she smiles. “Yeah, that sounds good to me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you guys for reading!


End file.
